checking in on this it is interesting to me that the handful of examples people have — a handful weighed against hundreds of thousands of words of communication — are three to five years old and come from budget documents or t-shirts or people who aren’t even in office anymore
which is to ask, what is the standard by which we conclude democrats no longer use this language, if actual evidence of its rarity doesn’t count? if the standard is “republicans no longer accuse them of it,” then you’re just illustrating the basic problem with this discourse
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They want capitulation on the underlying social issues, by which they actually mean they want to roll back culture and society and are threatening to (re-)join the Republican coalition of it doesn't happen. Which it won't.
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my take: the standard these ppl use is
common knowledge, ie, "everyone is saying this"(ie "the media I watch/listen to is saying this"), which isn't actl something the Dems -or anyone but that person!- has any power over. The real solution here is Nichols needs to stop watching Fox News. -
I still don't understand what's wrong with talking this way
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it's clear to me that Third Way's problem isn't "using words that make the speaker come across/ mildly annoying", it's that they're all related to real social issues that are life and death for lots and lots of people.
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It's like crime - it cannot possibly ever be absolute zero so therefore it must be EVERYWHERE!
like the mathematical concept that zero equals infinity.
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The words aren't the problem, it's the ideas they convey.
The GOP hasn't wanted to discuss civil rights since the Palmer Raids.
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i think that the issue isn’t the words, it is the substantive positions. no amount of language self policing will satisfy someone who just disagrees with, say, legal protection from gender discrimination
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Democrats must be defined be what the Republicans claim they are and Republicans must be defined by what the Republicans claim they are. That’s just balanced journalism.
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We need the linguist historical experts to "weigh in" waywordradio.org (okay-what is the historical background of the term "weigh in"🤣? This is actually a nerdy and very fun show).
https://waywordradio.org/(okay-what
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yup. But doesn't that show that the "very serious people" on the center left are just easy marks for the GOP?
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Republicans were arguing that Democrats were the party of slavery on Fox like last month….so maybe 100 years from now?
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Or perhaps flood the media space with the vernacular, and aggressively so. Reclaim plain language, as visibly as possible. And extend this to the ivory tower, as much as possible.
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It’s GOP-voting parents hearing their kids use these words when they come home from college that riles them up. Pissy parents want to rewind the clock to before their kids started developing their own identities, and they think GOPers will make it happen thru literal and figurative force
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Democrats aren’t losing elections bc they use woke language. Critics are purposefully missing the real reason why they’re losing.
Democrats are losing elections bc white voters are rejecting their diverse coalition & governance by that coalition. It’s the backlash to the 1st black president.
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Especially as the ruling party is fueled by young staffers who talk like they spend way too much time reading books with titles like “Sea Knights for Christ: How the Battle of Lepanto Saved the West from the Dusky Hordes”
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This feels so much like Lucy and the football, except they're ripping away the football while simultaneously moving the goal post.
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Why is it that Democrats get into political trouble when we try to follow the Golden Rule of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” as well as the Platinum Rule “Do unto others as they would want done unto them"?
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This is much like the accusation that Harris talked about trans people all the time, when the reality is that only Republican attack ads did so. Far too many people on the left and center internalize Republican talking points, and so mistake them for reality.
